The Thirteenth Sacrifice (7 page)

“But someone wants to see you get blamed for these deaths,” Samantha said. “One of your love letters to him was in the room.”

“What? He kept them?” Katie asked. The look of hope that flickered briefly in her eyes was painful to see.

“Somebody did. Somebody who wanted you to take the fall for his death and the others.”

“But I didn’t even know the nun! How could anyone possibly blame me for that?”

“Who was your last roommate? The one who stiffed you for rent?” Ed broke in.

“Jane. Jane Daniels.”

Samantha and Ed shared a glance. “When was the last time you heard from her?” Ed asked.

“Four months ago.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

Katie shook her head. “No. I tried calling her cell, but it was disconnected. I got some of her mail.”

“Did you keep it?” Ed asked.

“I sent it back.”

“Did the witches ask you about Jane?”

“Yes. Just like the others.”

“Did Jane ever talk about her family?” Samantha asked.

Katie shrugged. “She wasn’t much of a talker. I think she had a sister, but I’m not sure.”

“So you never met the sister?”

“No.”

“Katie, her sister was the nun that was killed today,” Ed said.

“Are you kidding me?” the girl asked, her eyes bulging.

“No, we’re not,” Samantha said. She put the photo of the nun faceup in front of Katie. The girl took one look at it and then squeezed her eyes shut, as if wishing would make it go away.

“I didn’t know.”

“Four months ago Jane was attacked by witches who tried to sacrifice her. They stabbed her, left her for dead. She survived by a miracle, but she’s locked up in a mental hospital.”

Katie began to cry again.

Samantha thought of Jane, remembered the scars on
her ears. It had looked like someone had ripped off one of her earrings.
Her ears were pierced
—
that’s why they couldn’t use her. She wasn’t completely pure. They didn’t know until they started the ritual,
Samantha realized. That meant that whatever this was had started months before.

“You have to help us catch these people,” Samantha said.

“They’re going to kill me!”

“Not if we can help it, but you have to work with us.”

“Is there some kind of witness protection program? You know—change my name and everything.”

“That will depend on a great many things. If you help us catch these people you might not have to go into hiding.”

Katie bit her lower lip and twisted a silver dagger ring round and round her finger, staring at it as though it would somehow give her the answers she was seeking. “Okay,” she finally agreed in a very quiet voice. “I don’t know how much I can help, but I’ll try.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Ed said suddenly. “If these people want to hurt you, the only way to be safe is to make sure that they’re behind bars.”

Katie nodded, clearly wanting to believe him.

Samantha knew better. If the people Katie was involved with were into the things she thought they were, there was no way a prison cell would stand between them and vengeance.

“I don’t know how many of them there are. I only ever met the one girl,” Katie said.

“Do you know her name?” Ed asked.

“Bridget. I don’t know her last name.”

“Do you have any pictures?”

“Yeah, we’re best friends. We got professional portraits
done together,” Katie said, her sarcasm returning in full force.

Ed raised an eyebrow. “You can’t tell me you didn’t snap a pic with your cell, just once?”

Katie looked away. “I tried to and she caught me. She was pretty mad and I was too scared to try again.”

“What does she look like?” Samantha asked.

“She has really pale blond hair, like almost white, and it hangs straight down her back to her waist. She has these freaky amber eyes that seem to stare right through you, you know?”

Samantha nodded but didn’t say anything.

“She’s about an inch taller than me, so she’s got to be about five-six. She’s thin, but not like skeletal. I think she’s my age.”

“Where did you meet her?” Samantha asked.

“I met her at a party at this haunted house in Salem a few months ago. I don’t know who she knew there; she just sort of showed up. Kyle had just dumped me and I was a mess. I couldn’t stop crying. She said that she could help me.”

“For a price,” Samantha finished.

Katie nodded.

“So how did you contact her?” Ed asked.

“She called me. Her number was always blocked.”

“What else do you know about her?”

“I think she lives in Salem. At the party she said she was just a couple of minutes from home.”

Samantha blinked. Real witches in Salem? There hadn’t been any for years. At least as far as she knew. Most practitioners gave Salem a wide berth. It was one giant tourist trap focused on witchcraft and the town’s history. It could get to be a little irritating, but if a person could stand it, it was also a perfect place to hide.

“Do you know where in Salem the party was?” Samantha asked.

Katie nodded. “I don’t remember the address, but I could tell you how to get there.”

Ed tore off a piece of paper from his notepad and offered it to her along with a pen.

Katie shook her head. “I would have to take you there. I remember what the turns look like, but not well enough to describe them.”

“So we’ll have to see if we can schedule a little field trip,” Ed said.

“Better do it fast,” Samantha muttered, thinking about the news broadcast going on. Another couple of hours and it was going to be impossible to take Katie anywhere without someone noticing.

An hour later they were on the road, Katie sitting in the back of Ed’s car with an officer on either side of her. They passed Marblehead and into Salem and Samantha felt the hair on her arms stand on end. For years she had avoided Salem like the plague and she had been prepared to never go back.

“Turn left at that light,” Katie said.

Ed followed her directions. Katie’s memory was a little fuzzy in places, but eventually they turned onto a tree-lined street that Samantha knew well. She reached for her missing cross as panic flared inside her.
Please let me be wrong,
she prayed silently.

“There, that one!” Katie exclaimed. Ed pulled up in front of an old run-down mansion that Samantha recognized from her nightmares.

“You were at a party here?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Yeah. Amazing, huh? It’s creepy even in the daylight,”
Katie said. “Some guys in one of the fraternities put on a party here. It was like Halloween in April. It made a great haunted house.”

Probably because it
is
a haunted house,
Samantha thought.
At least it is for me.

“Bridget said a lot of people died here years ago. Some kind of group suicide, I think. Isn’t that freaky? Can you believe stuff like that actually happens?”

“It wasn’t a suicide,” Samantha said through gritted teeth. Sweat popped out on her forehead and ran down to sting her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Ed asked, so low she was pretty sure she alone heard it.

She shook her head as she began to tremble.

“Katie, you stay in the car with Officer Grant and Detective Ryan. We’ll go see if anyone’s home,” Ed instructed.

Samantha worked to control her breathing as Ed and Oliver got out of the car and approached the front door.

“We’re probably going to have to come back with a warrant,” Grant said from the backseat.

“I don’t think anyone lives there,” Katie said.

“Still need a warrant,” he said.

Samantha felt like something was trying to crawl its way out of her chest as she watched Ed and Oliver walk up the eight steps to the front door. Ed pressed the doorbell and even though she was too far away to hear it, the sound of it echoed in her memory until it seemed to fill the air around her.

Nothing happened. A minute later she watched as Ed knocked hard on the door. She barely stifled a scream as it swung open. She threw open her car door and sprinted up the steps. She grabbed both men and pulled them away from the door.

“Don’t go in there,” she pleaded, her voice sounding like a child’s in her own ears. “Please, please, please.”

“Samantha, let go,” Ed said. “What’s wrong with you?”

And then, from somewhere deep inside the house they heard a bloodcurdling scream. Ed and Oliver drew their weapons simultaneously and lunged forward.

Samantha grabbed the collar of Oliver’s shirt and spun him, throwing him down the steps. He landed at the bottom on one knee with a grunt of pain. “Get out of here!” she shouted. “Go! Now!”

He scrambled to his feet and ran around the car and got into the driver’s seat. He hesitated and she pulled her weapon. “We’ll call when it’s safe to come back.”

He gunned the car away from the curb while Ed stood gaping at her. “Stay behind me and do everything I tell you,” she said. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage so hard that she winced with every beat. It was a trap. She knew it, but she wouldn’t be able to stop Ed from going in if he thought someone was in trouble.

She stepped across the threshold and a blast of air rushed past her. Invisible hands plucked at her shirt as though trying to pull her back outside. She pushed her way through the wind until she was standing in the middle of the foyer.

“You search down here. I’ll go upstairs,” Ed said.

“No. If there’s anyone here, they’re in the basement. Stay right behind me.”

“Sam—”

“Shut up and do as you’re told.”

The house caught her words and they echoed around her, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, sometimes in her own voice and sometimes in the voices of others. She heard women, a man, and children repeating her words. She felt dizzy, but she bit the inside of her cheek
to have something tangible to focus on and it helped her push through the disorientation.

She turned around and slapped Ed across the face as hard as she could. He yelped in pain and surprise and the house caught that and sent it around the room as well.

“Focus on the pain, no matter what.”

She headed for the kitchen. She could hear the floor creaking behind her as Ed followed. Beneath her steps the floorboards were silent, as they had been designed to be. Only those who had never been welcomed into the home caused the wood to groan a warning to the occupants.

They walked into the kitchen and the outline of a woman passed before the window onto the backyard. She turned to look at them and tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Hey!” Ed shouted.

“It’s a ghost, Ed. Ignore it,” Samantha hissed. The image disappeared, much like a soap bubble bursting.

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?”

“Shut up!”

She crossed to the door to the basement and threw it open. She flipped the switch but was not surprised that there was no electricity. The darkness beneath was complete and heavy.

“We need flashlights,” Ed whispered.

Without taking her eyes from the doorway, Samantha opened the kitchen drawer nearest her and pulled out two candles and a box of matches. “Light them.”

She knew he wanted to protest, could feel it, but he didn’t. Instead he handed her a lit candle and she tilted it slightly so the wax wouldn’t run over her fingers as it dripped.

She stepped forward into the darkness and began to descend the staircase. The light from the candle sent grotesque shadows dancing over the ceiling and walls, but she ignored them, half shutting her eyes and taking the stairs more from memory than sight.

As she continued downward more sounds assailed her. She heard chanting, wailing, laughter, screams, all mixed together. She bit down harder on her cheek and gradually the sounds faded.

She reached the floor of the basement and stepped away from the staircase. A spectral child ran up it and straight through Ed, almost causing him to fall. He caught himself on the railing, then made it down the rest of the way. The smell of blood filled Samantha’s nostrils as memories came pouring back over her.

She was standing in a circle, cutting her arms, and there was so much blood, but not enough to save her, not enough to make the circle complete.

It’s not real; none of it’s real,
she told herself over and over as she stepped slowly into the room, lifting her candle high.
What I’m seeing, what I’m hearing, all of it is echoes only.

She took one more step and realized that while everything else she had seen and heard might be only phantoms, the pool of blood on the floor was not.

It can’t still be here, not fresh, not glistening as though it was spilled moments ago!

She bit the inside of her cheek harder until she tasted blood, but it didn’t make the vision go away. She took three steps forward until the light from her candle showed her the source. A young woman in a white gown was on the floor, her eyes wide-open in death. It was her blood that was rippling away from Samantha’s shoes as she stepped through it.

With a shout of dismay Ed rushed forward. “I knew I heard someone scream. We should have come faster.”

“It was her scream you heard, but she’s been dead for at least an hour,” Samantha said, wishing that it wasn’t true.

“But the blood, it’s so fresh. And the scream. That was only five minutes ago.”

“Don’t let it fool you. She was dead long before we got here. Call it in.”

Ed pulled his cell out of his pocket and pushed a button. He waited a moment and then held the candle up to it. “No service.”

Need to leave
. She heard the words as clearly as though Ed had spoken them.

“Need to leave,” Samantha echoed, turning back toward the stairs.

Need to leave.

Need to leave.

“Something touched me!” Ed shouted.

“Need to leave!”

The door at the top of the staircase slammed shut and wind whooshed by her, picking the hair up off her neck. It snuffed the candles, plunging them into darkness.

“What was that?”

Samantha could hear the panic in Ed’s voice. It was nearly drowned out, though, by the other voices that were growing louder.